SHTETL BERLIN 2020 - WORKSHOPS AND DAYTIME EVENTS
This year's workshops (and some of the evening programming) will take place on the Zoom platform. Although it's possible to join a Zoom session without an account or the Zoom app, it works much better with, especially for the workshops.
All event times are Berlin, (GMT+1).
Follow these links to learn more about this year's EVENTS, ARTISTS for SHTETL BERLIN 2020

SUNDAY December 6
18:00 - BAGEL BAKING WORKSHOP with Laurel Kratochvila
co-presented with KlezKanada and Fine Bagels

FRIDAY DECEMBER 11
19:00 - 19:45  Shtetl Welcome Session
All registered participants, performers, and workshop leaders are invited to join in for a big community-wide Zoom session, where we'll say hello, drink a lekhayim, and learn a nign or two! We'll have a festive Shtetl Berlin 2020 kick-off and get the weekend started right. Directly after will be our first official event: Shabes in Shtetl

SATURDAY DECEMBER 12
11:30 - 13:00  Session 1
  • Instrumental Workshop “What’s That Line? Accompaniment & Counter-lines” - Christian Dawid & Craig Judelman - A workshop for hearing the mid-voice magic in old recordings, and learning how to play it! We’ll pick some classic recordings and focus on what happens below the melody. What’s the trumpet doing in the B-section? What’s that piano counter-line? That trombone pattern? What’s really going on above the bass, and actually, what’s the bass doing at all? Lead sheets and recordings provided up front.
  • Song Workshop “Aleyn Tsuzamen: Yiddish Songs of Community, Commotion, and Communicable Disease” - Sasha Lurje & Daniel Kahn - Two intensive remote singing sessions exploring new and old Yiddish songs of solidarity, revolution, plagues, mass resistance, and love. Drawing on sources such as Beregovski, Gebirtig, the Yiddish theater, contemporary songwriters, and traditional ballads, these songs highlight our deep connections to one another, even in our separation. We are all alone together, let’s sing about it. This workshop will be broken into two parts, on Saturday and Sunday- participants are encouraged to come to both but also welcome to join for just one.

13:30 - 14:30  Lunchtime Zoom Shmooze - Using Zoom’s “breakout room” function, we’ll have a daily lunchtime shmooze, where all are welcome to digitally wander between three different rooms to meet friends and take part in conversations in two or three different languages, or to pick up an instrument at home and play along with a virtual klezmer jam.
  • Online Jam Session - hosted by Susi Evans & Szilvia Csaranko (Germany)
  • Yiddish shmooze room - hosted by Janina Wurbs (Bern)
  • English/Deutsch shmooze room - hosted by Craig Judelman 

15:00 - 16:30  Session 2
  • Instrumental Workshop “These Are a Few of My Favorite Things: Klezmer Repertoire Class" - Alan Bern - We all have favorite tunes: melodies that touch us again and again no matter how many times we hear or play them. Join Dr. Alan Bern to sing or play along as he shares some of his personal favorites, and reflects a bit on why they stand the test of time.
  • Cooking workshop - "Cassola - The Ultimate Roman Jewish Hanukkah Cheesecake" - Alessia Di Donato (Warsaw) (presented in cooperation with the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews) - Pastry chef Alessia Di Donato joins us from the kitchen in Warsaw's POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews to share the recipe of a delicious Jewish cheesecake special for Hanukkah. All are invited to discover this gluten-free dessert which has Roman roots, just like our chef, and is one of the most famous Jewish desserts in the world. Recipe provided here so you can get your shopping done! (You can also find it with the rest of the workshop materials.)​
  • Lecture - "ikh dertsel a lid: Mind and Memory of a Singer" - Franziska Seehausen (Bonn) - event postponed to 2021

17:00 - 18:30  Session 3
  • Instrumental Workshop “Borderline Klezmer” - Ilya Shneyveys & Jake Shulman-Ment (Brooklyn) - A workshop focusing on klezmer and klezmer-adjacent melodies from all over Eastern Europe, as well as style, ornamentation, accompaniment and all that klezz.
  • Song Workshop  - Michael Alpert (Scotland) - Michael Alpert has been a leading force in the Yiddish revival since its very beginning in the 1970's. Performing with bands including Kapelye and Brave Old World, he has consistently pointed a way forward for Yiddish culture while simultaneously connecting with its roots. Join him to explore traditional Yiddish songs from his repertoire, learned in person from some of the great Yiddish singers of the recent past.
  • Lecture "Der eyntsiker vofn iz di pen... (The Only Weapon is the Pen...) Yiddishland: A Republic Between Words and Values" - Dr. Diana Matut (Halle) - Yiddish was (and is) a stateless language. Before 1933, it was spoken by over 11 million people worldwide. Against the backdrop of the bellicose sovereignty movements and rising nationalism of the interwar period, the architects of the "Yiddish nation" created an alternative identity space defined by art, literature and language. Wherever people struggled, with pen, word and sound, to uphold the values of this Yiddish-speaking nation without borders, a virtual, pan-European, even worldwide space emerged: Yiddishland. This lecture introduces Yiddishland as a comprehensive concept.

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SUNDAY DECEMBER 13
11:30 - 13:00  Session 1
  • Instrumental Workshop “Playing (Melodies) Nicely With Others” - Emil Goldschmidt (Copenhagen) & Craig Judelman - Over the centuries klezmer bands have evolved from small string bands to big brass orchestras, and while many things changed, the core of klezmer was always a particularly Yiddish way of expressing a melody. In this workshop for musicians of all levels we’ll learn a couple simpler melodies and focus on using phrasing, articulation, ornaments and variations to really say something, with special attention to playing in conversation with other melody players to keep any tune exciting and expressive whether playing solo or with 30 of your best friends. Sheet music provided in advance for those who want to come prepared. 
  • Song Workshop “Aleyn Tsuzamen: Yiddish Songs of Community, Commotion, and Communicable Disease” - Sasha Lurje & Daniel Kahn - Two intensive remote singing sessions exploring new and old Yiddish songs of solidarity, revolution, plagues, mass resistance, and love. Drawing on sources such as Beregovski, Gebirtig, the Yiddish theater, contemporary songwriters, and traditional ballads, these songs highlight our deep connections to one another, even in our separation. We are all alone together, let’s sing about it. This workshop will be broken into two parts, on Saturday and Sunday- participants are encouraged to come to both but also welcome to join for just one.

13:30 - 14:30  Lunchtime Zoom Shmooze - Using Zoom’s “breakout room” function, we’ll have a daily lunchtime shmooze, where all are welcome to digitally wander between three different rooms to meet friends and take part in conversations in two or three different languages, or to pick up an instrument at home and play along with a virtual klezmer jam.
  • Online Jam Session hosted by Susi Evans & Szilvia Csaranko (Germany)
  • Yiddish shmooze room hosted by Mendy Cahan (Tel Aviv)
  • English/Deutsch shmooze room hosted by Craig Judelman

15:00 - 16:30  Session 2
  • Instrumental Workshop - "Podolian Repertoire" - Christian Dawid (with Patrick Farrell) - Learn and play through some of the Jewish (and somewhat less Jewish) tunes from the repertoire of Ukraine’s legendary brass band, Konsonans Retro. We’ll discover lesser known tunes that haven’t been recorded yet, and show you what our colleagues from the East like to do with them. For players of all instruments, intermediate and up. Sheet music provided up front!
  • Poetry Reading “Vos iz mer vi lebn?” - Arndt Beck & Anna Rozenfeld (presented in cooperation with Yiddish Berlin) - Avrom Sutzkever (1913‒2010) is one of the outstanding poets of the Yiddish language. Yiddish Berlin celebrated his 10th yortsayt at the beginning of 2020 with an exhibition dedicated to his work, and now sees the end of the year out with one more event. Sutzkever's poetry speaks aloud: “Vos iz mer vi lebn?” offers a collage of his poetry, accompanied by the sounds of DJ Lenar.

17:00 - 18:30  Session 3
  • Dance Workshop “New Horizons in Yiddish Dance” - Yeva Lapsker & Sayumi Yoshida with Alan Bern - ​Join Sayumi Yoshida, Yeva Lapsker, and Alan Bern for an innovative and dynamic workshop focusing on the traditional Yiddish Khosidl and other "distanced" dance practices. We will be working together on style, musicality and interconnectivity, all in light of the contemporary challenges brought on by collective isolation: this is Yiddish social dance for the solo body.
  • Song Workshop - "Songs of the YIVO Sound Archive" Lorin Sklamberg (Brooklyn) - Join the Grammy Award winning Klezmatics lead singer Lorin Sklamberg as he dons his sound archivist hat to guide you through a listening session featuring some of the rare Yiddish vocal treasures to be found in the Max and Frieda Weinstein Archive of YIVO Sound Recordings. Lorin will also teach a batch of his favorite songs from the collection during the session - texts in the original alef-beys, transliteration and translation will be provided, as well a link to an online playlist to be savored later at your leisure.
  • Lecture “Daytsh aftselakhis (or: German to Spite the Germans)” - Michael Wex (Toronto) - With respect to Yiddish, William Burroughs was wrong: language is not a virus, it's a dybbuk, and as far as Yiddish is concerned, German is Linda Blair. From the moment when Jews in the Middle Ages started speaking "German" to one another, they were speaking German aftselakhis - German to spite the Germans - a “German” that embodies the successful circumcision of every German cultural assumption - a German that Germans wouldn’t understand. We’ll be looking at the process and some of its results. No knowledge of Yiddish required (but English would be nice).






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​SUPPORT
As a small artist-run festival we rely on your support. We suggest a 10EUR donation for each class and event you attend, but feel free to donate as much or as little as you can - any amount helps! CLICK HERE to donate.

VOLUNTEERING
If you're interested in helping us, especially with running Zoom sessions and other technical stuff, please contact us.
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PROMOTE
Help us by spreading the word about the festival, invite your friends, like and share our facebook and instagram pages, as well as our website: shtetlberlin.com